Powder Coating valve covers

Use one of you wife's FINE nail SANDING files; not the metal ones, but the thick cardboard/form ones.

I did.

Works just fine.


Take your time and be ready to buy a REALLY NICE dinner and the eatery of HER choice.

 

I used a small orbital sander with moderately coarse paper (so as to leave swirl marks)

 

Ah.............. Power tools, I have head of those.



I do all mine "by hand," just because I have the time to do it. I BET THE ORBITAL SANDER WOULD WORK REALLY WELL TOO.

But be careful as powertools can "get away from you," make a mess and case you to have to do it all over again.

 

Too true! In fact, I have NOT done this process on my Ferraris but rather, on Jaguar XK engines with the ribbed cam covers. The orbital sander, if used with very little pressure, leaves tiny 'orbital' swirls that look like a minerature 'tooled' finish.

 

I don't like to sand thru powdercoating as the sanded edge is usually a different color.

I mask it off with heat resistant tape made for powder coating. The straight bars are just the right size to be masked off with thin tape. The lettering I mask off with wide tape, then use an eXacto knife to trim the tape edges flush with the lettering's edges. The tape is easy to pull off after the part has partially cooled. Once the tape is removed, you can usually sand the revealed bare metal without cutting thru to the different color lower layers.

 

Hey Rick! Hows the head doing? I'll ring you if I come up that way, & that may happen soon.
Way back when I was involved in restorations, we used to use the thick HVAC "aluminum"
duct tape to protect the areas we didn't want coated. It was the most durable, and the easiest
to deal with afterwards in the terms of removal & residue left behind.
Stuff looks great!

 

There a are a number of ways to do it depending on the finish you want. If you want the raised area to be unfinished aluminum you can:

1: tape with any kind of tape and then shoot the powder and then remove the tape before curing the powder, if you remove the tape after cure , you will have a ridge where the tape line is that will need to be addressed. If the tape is removed before cure, when it cures you will have a nice flowed edge. You can also tape them and then partial cure till it starts to flow, then remove from oven let cool and remove tape while still warm then full cure.

2: finish the raised letters the way you want then shoot the powder and use a wet (dampened) Q-tip or a damped finger to wipe the powder off the letters, then cure.

3: shoot the whole cover, cure, cool and then hit it with the orbital sander removing all the powder on the raised letters. This will give you the swirls of the sander finish.

4: if polishing the raised letters, polish first then use either method #1 or #2, same if you were going to do the letters in a contrasting color of powder. Shoot the letters first, cure, then shoot the second color useing one of the above steps.

I like to use these finger nail files to sand the edges if you dont want them polished. I use these after everything is done , just to clean up the letters and the edges.


Here is an example of a cover done with the nail sanding blocks. Forgive me that it is not a Ferrari part, but it is Red.


Creative Candy Powder Coating
www.creativecandy.org

 

I checked the Unobtainiuim Supply Company, they were out of stock also, lol.

 

o1Racing03 - That's a terrific first post!

 

Ty, my brother thought I might have some useful info for you guys. I am a full time powder coater and will help any way I can.

 

While the outside appearance of the coated cover can't be beat, I've always been nervous over the whole idea of powder coating valve covers out of concern that some "overspray" (so to speak) might get into the inside of the valve cover.

Then, with time, the hot engine oil might loosen the interior finish, and circulate the dried paint bits thru the engine.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks - DM

 

If done correctly the cover should be taped off on the underside to prevent this. Also the cover should have been cleaned to bare metal before coating , so any powder that is on the underside should cure fully and is not likely to come off due to exposure to hot oil.